"Non abbiamo le lenzuola bianche."
Translation:We do not have white sheets.
51 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Why does it say "le" and "bianche" (plural), but the word "lenzuola" itself seems to be singular?
It's one of those words that change gender from singular to plural. "il lenzuolo" (m, singular), "le lenzuola" (f, plural)
it is not that bad comparing to the hundreds of irregular verbs in English
And Hungarian. Not counting that the c whole language is irregular comparing to Indo-European languages ;)
English irregular verbs have regularities even though they are called "irregular" but this is nuts xD
Are you sure? When I looked it up 'lenzuolo' appeared to mean a blank sheet of paper or similar, whereas the singular for bedsheet was still feminine- lenzuola. It seems to me that it does not change its gender, rather it remains the same in both the (feminine) singular form and the plural form. Which is really confusing! Please correct me if I am wrong though!
Il lenzuolo = bedsheet, singular, m. Le lenzuola = bedsheet, plural, f. http://www.wordreference.com/iten/lenzuolo http://www.wordreference.com/iten/lenzuola I can't think of any instance when lenzuolo refers to a blank sheet of paper. I am sure in the sense I am an italian native speaker.
Fair enough, the site I looked at was clearly wrong! Would definitely trust word reference as a site more than the one I was on.
Close. Afaik, it comes from Latin neuter nouns, where the singular ends in -um and the plural in -a.
I wonder if the Romans adopted that construction of plurals from the Greeks, as they did with many things about the Greeks that they admired and elevated as a high form of culture.
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Latin and Greek both got it from their language ancestor, Proto-Indo-European. Englosh also derives from Proto-Indo-European but losr the genders. German kept the genders in the singular, and in German too the nominative = accusative for neuter.
why do you still need to say 'le lenzuola' if the direct article isn't needed? Would 'non abbiamo lenzuola bianche' also be correct?
"we do not have white linens" was marked incorrect. In the US bed linens are used interchangeably with bed sheets. - please help.
doesn't bed linen include pillowcases as well as sheets? - it does in English english
Yes, but the distinctive use of "linens" in the US can mean both the set or singular item. This is a common practice with a lot of phrases that employ generic words. It's an encompassing term, but the reason why it doesn't work here is because DL wants a specific translation.
Yes, DL generally wants a specific translation because it is trying to teach us a specific thing about the Italian language structure and grammar, so that we learn how to build sentences correctly in Italian. And what it sounds like in an English translation is almost besides the point.
There's a report button for this kind of thing. Select that your translation should have been accepted.
We do not have white bedding is correct, not we do not have white beddings, no such word. English from England, don't know about USA
So the masculine singular form is 'il lenzuolo' why does the feminine plural change to an 'a' ending instead of an 'i'?
because it comes from a neuter word in latin. The plural ending for neuter words are always "a" in Latin. Italian made the singular ending "o" for masculine/neuter nouns.
My answer used the word "bedding". Duolingo was fine with this, except for making the suggestion that I had a typo and meant "beddings". I just want to mention for Duolingo that this is not a word in English usage, we only ever use "bedding".
In this case,
lenzuolo (singular) is an irregular noun which changes its gender when it's plural.
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Mi chiedo cosa sia successo alle lenzuola che non sono più bianche? < hmmm,errrr, ahem, cough, cough>
I used "le lenzuole bianche" and was marked correct, but that sounds wrong after reading the comments. Did the system see it as a typo?
This is just a weird word. In the singular it's masculine "il lenzuolo" but in the plural it becomes feminine "le lenzuola." It's "bianche" because that's the feminine plural form of that word.
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I am wondering two things. a) How come 'lenzuoli' appears in the sugestions? b) Is this just another word where the letters at the end of the word don't match what you would intuitively think based on the corresponding articles (ex. la chiave, le chiavi)?
All we have are lenzuola rossi, to go with our seggiole rosse and muri rossi in our stanza rossa (sorry, but I couldn't help The Shining reference).
Duo thinks beddings is a word? Surely it is bedding or bedsheets in English?